On ds., juny 15 2019, Martin Steigerwald wrote:

> golinux@??? - 15.06.19, 01:50:
>> Someone posted the email copied below to the freedom.devuan.org
>> mailbox. I hoping that someone on this list could pen an answer
>> and
>> post here for me to reply or directly if you have access there.
>> I
>> really don't want to say something that's not quite right
>> especially
>> since FSF is tangentially involved. Thanks.
>
> This may not be as easily answered as you think, cause ideally
> it would
> require an agreement on how Devuan project handles this.
>
> As far as I am aware to qualify the distro must be 100% free of
> any
> proprietary software and software that comes without source
> code, that
> includes any firmware blobs delivered with the Linux kernel.
>
> Also the distro has to have a policy to include only free
> software.
>
> While Debian GNU/Linux ships an installer without non free
> software,
> AFAIR it still did not qualify. The reason for that is that
> while Debian
> ships only free software by default, it allows the user to
> easily add
> non-free software to the system¹.
>
>> They do not have a policy of only including free software, and
>> removing nonfree software if it is discovered.


Indeed, I was going to say something along these lines.

Particularly: Devuan's installer does include firmware, so AFAIU
it's in an even worse position than Debian in that regard.

>From Ascii release notes:


> ### Non-free firmware
>
> All Devuan 2.0 ASCII install media make non-free firmware
> packages
> available at install time. In the majority of the cases, these
> packages are needed (and will be installed) only if your wifi
> adapter
> requires them. It is possible to avoid the automatic
> installation and
> loading of needed non-free firmware by choosing the "Expert
> install"
> option in the installation menu.
>
> Devuan 2.0 ASCII desktop-live and minimal-live images come with
> non-free firmware packages pre-installed. You have the option of
> removing those non-free firmware packages from the desktop-live
> and
> minimal-live after boot, using the "remove_firmware.sh" script
> available under /root.
--
Evilham